After living on a year-to-year basis with College Hockey America, the Niagara men’s hockey team has found a permanent home.

Niagara, along with Robert Morris, will join Atlantic Hockey for the 2010-11 season.

“We wanted to find a stable and a place where we felt we could compete for an NCAA bid with institutions like us,” Niagara Athletic Director Ed McLaughlin said. “I think we found it. We looked at different options and this was the right fit.”

Niagara will continue to play in the CHA this year, along with the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The Purple Eagles also will play in the CHA next season, though the league needs to have its automatic bid renewed by the NCAA Championships and Competition Cabinet.

The CHA has been on the brink of extinction for several years as teams have folded (Findley and Wayne State) or have moved to other conferences (Air Force and Army to Atlantic Hockey).

NCAA rules require conferences to have a minimum of six teams for automatic bids into the postseason tournament. (Atlantic Hockey now has 10 teams, including Canisius, and an automatic bid.) The governing body passed an exemption that allowed the CHA to keep its bid with five teams, but when Wayne State dropped hockey and left the conference with just four teams, the CHA’s entry into the NCAA tournament was reduced to a year-by- year reprieve.

For the past few years, Niagara has been actively looking for another home, courting the ECAC several times but with no luck.

The school had balked at Atlantic Hockey for several years because of the league’s scholarship limits.

Niagara has 17 scholarships while Atlantic Hockey caps its scholarships at 11. The league will up its scholarship level to 12 by the time Niagara joins, but the Purple Eagles will need to either reduce their current roster size or limit recruiting of incoming players to be compliant with the league rules.

“The first concern is for the student- athlete and the way it will impact our student-athletes,” McLaughlin said. “We should be able to do it in the next two years. It was a difficult matter and it was a sticking point in looking at Atlantic Hockey. From a competitive standpoint, I’m not too concerned about it because we have highly talented coaches.”

Head coach Dave Burkholder, with his team in Huntsville, Ala., for a weekend CHA series with Alabama- Huntsville, had little to say about the move.

“I am deferring all questions to my athletic director and will concentrate on my team and the end of the season,” Burkholder said.

McLaughlin said there were efforts to attract teams to the CHA to bump it from its current four teams (Niagara, Robert Morris, Bemidji State and Alabama-Huntsville) to a more secure five or six teams. But, he noted, that any teams they would bring into the fold would be adding hockey — something that brings about serious financial and gender equity questions to schools.

The jump to Atlantic Hockey will bring that league’s total to 12 teams.

“It gives us natural rivalries, obviously with Canisius but also with Robert Morris, Holy Cross, Sacred Heart, Army and Air Force,” McLaughlin said. “The biggest part is that, with respect to the teams already in the conference, we feel we can contend for an automatic qualifier every year.

“You don’t want to see a league go away. It’s not the best business for college hockey to lose a league. Nobody wins. But this is the right move for us at Niagara.”